Monday, 14 September 2015

Team Yankee - Info About The Game.

Hello All

It's Monday so we all know what that means, it's time for another look at Team Yankee.
Today we got are hands on some information about the new book, the novel and the game itself from the next copy of Wargames Illustrated (don't worry there is more to read in the magazine, we haven't spoiled it all!) So this is what we learnt:-

The Novel

  • Team Yankee is based on novel written by Harold Coyle in 1987 about a fictional Soviet invasion of Western Germany. 
  • The book is from the view point of "Team Yankee's" commander. 
  • The book is being released by Battlefront in paperback and on Kindle.
The Rulebook (yes I meant rulebook)
  • The Flames of War Team Yankee rulebook is 120 pages long and includes the entire rules, background, complete US and Soviet forces and scenarios from the novel.

The Goals of Team Yankee
  • Team Yankee draws a lot from FOW but it isn't the same game. 
  • It is similar but there are many differences and an experienced FOW player might find it better to approach this as a new game.
  • The goal of this new rule set is "to keep the depth and complexity of FOW, but to make the game easier to learn. 
  • The game needed to be robust enough for tournament play, but have fewer special rules and exceptions to keep it suitable for casual players. (a good example of this is hit allocation, now one page instead of four and easier to understand).
  • The last goal was to have lots of lovely plastic kits for Tanks and helicopters.
  • Another change from normal FOW is the rulebook doesn't attempt to have all the answers. It states the rules. There will be a living on-line that will cover the gaps between this simple game and the completeness of FOW. There will be lots of diagrams to make the rules work for competitive tournament play. 
How Does It Play?
  • Very fast, even compared to FOW.
  • Tactical Movement, the speed you fight at, is slightly faster for the infantry and slower for the tanks.
  • But Dash movement (I guess doubling?) is much faster and the only downside is you can't fight.
  • The game is also faster is the rules are stream lined, there will be cards (more info on this next week) and reference sheets so there is less time looking in the rulebook.
  • The final reason is that everything in modern warfare is deadlier.

There you go for another week, come back next week for a look at the unit cards and way you pick your army in Team Yankee.


Thanks for reading.

32 comments:

  1. So BF bought the rights to the novel? Very interesting.

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  2. Wow, didn't expect that. Sounds like playtesting FoW v4. Interesting! :-)

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  3. I like the idea of Plastic tanks and helicopter

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  4. Very cool can't wait to try it out, thanks for posting BTA!

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  5. Hrrrmm... I'm not entirely sure how I feel about all this.

    The mention of cards and a living rules document makes me a bit weary. I definitely understand how it could streamline things for a lot of people, but as something of an old-school traditionalist when it comes to tabletop gaming I rather enjoy flicking through a big hefty rulebook. I'm weird like that I suppose. Perhaps they'll put out an expanded rulebook edition or something to cater for people like me though.

    I'm also hesitant about the talk of streamlining the rules, as I was looking forward to a deep complex affair to really sink my teeth into. But apparently they're looking to keep the same depth and complexity of the normal FOW system, so I could very well simply be overreacting there.

    The real sticking point for me at the moment though is the background. I mentioned it earlier but I'm not particularly keen on the background coming from a book, since that will likely mean a complete fully-determined set of events, and as something of a storyteller at heart I was looking forward to having a more open-ended setting that I could develop myself however I wanted (since any world war 3 setting is by it's nature only semi-historical rather than a fully historical conflict like, say the first or second world wars). I guess I can ignore the source material if I have to, but I tend to feel bad doing that.

    Still, my fears may prove needless yet, and I think I'll be keeping an eye on this one for a while longer at least - any tabletop wargame that can potentially satisfy my lust to rip into the best NATO/the United States has to offer with Mi-24 Hinds is definitely worth a closer look (even if they're plastic and not metal like I was wishing for - I love me some good metal models). I wonder how they'll be handling things like chemical weapons, ballistic missiles and thermobaric explosives...

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  6. This has made it a definite purchase for me!

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  7. hmmm, interesting for sure. Sounds like they almost want to cater to gamers that enjoy a faster game such as X Wing (hopefully not too much like Age of Sigmar though). Cards may be interesting and faster play are all welcome. I just hope it works!

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  8. One for the Christmas Wishlist for sure. I think that by making the gameplay faster- less detailed- FoW will paradoxically make it more representative of modern (well, WW3) armoured combat and so more realistic...

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  9. Please No!!! Sounds horrible! Yet another game for 9 year old kids! Hope original Flames of War stays more the same, and doesn't get dumbed down like for example Warhammer Fantasy was with the release of Age of Sigmar. I've just quit playing Warhammer after more than 20 years due to the horrible Age of Sigmar release, and to my ears the approch sounds much simular. Last year I found this fantastic game called Flames of war, which allow me to combine my interest for history, WWII and the wargaming hobby. I hope that Battlefront don't turn into a new GW.

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    1. Battlefront has always been GW in German splinter camo. Many of the founders started out in GW, the rules owe a lot to GW and the marketing plan is pure GW. I just hope they are wise enough not to take this latest path GW has taken with fantasy, or people may start abandoning them in droves like they did AoS.

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  10. Have to agree on the caution with regards to streamlined rules, I for one enjoy the complexity of regular FOW yes there's alot in there but that holds my attention, its a fine line between making a system accessible and dumbing it down to much...ill reserve final judgment until the product is here the minis certainly look good, will have to see what the rules are like...

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  11. This sounds perfect! I am playing FOW for 4 years atleast 2 times a week for 2 of those years and I Love FOW but the rules are very "cluncky". This is coming form a man how plays Harpoon. They feal very "archaic" I can compare them to a newish historical wargame By Fire and Sword which have alot of complexity but it is very intuative.
    Any rewrite would be most welcome at my gameclubb. ^^

    PS: I dream of less durable infatry.

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  12. Team Yankee (1987) had a U.S. Abrams company attached as support to a U.S. Mechanized Infantry Battalion with M113A1 carriers. including ITV and FIST vehicles. This combined arms force supported by artillery (M109A1 155mm SPH) and air (A10 IWarthogs) was engaged by a Soviet BMP battalion (31 BMP-1, 6 120mm mortars, 6 MTL APC) with an attached T72 Tank Company (13 tanks), AA (1 or 2 ZSU-23/4 and SA-9) and engineering assets (mine rollers on at least one tank. MTU assault bridge). Most of the action involves the tank company HQ, 2 Abrams platoons, and a Mech Platoon plus FIST (Team Yankee). The Team defends, then attacks, etc. Not sure how they will run the Soviets size wise but the US forces would likely be 2 Abrams and a FIST in HQ, 2 mandatory 4 tank Abrams platoons (M1 with 105mm gun) and an option for another tank platoon plus Mech platoons, scout platoons, mortar and artillery support.

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  13. I am really looking forward to this game and if BF are trying out new mechanisms of play - good luck to them. My only concern is that is TY going to be a one-off/ stand-alone game? I was hoping that there would be future expansions of the game that would extend its coverage to include BAOR and the Bundeswehr. It was n't just the US Army that was defending Europe! Hopefully the game will be a success and will encourage BF to continue with the "Cold War gone Hot theme".

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    1. Its for this reason that I'm probably not going to buy anything until/unless the brits at least come out. Abrams and t-72s are nice, but I want some Challengers!

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  14. Team Yankee WILL be expanded, somebody from the BF-Team allready mentioned there will be more Armies and Nations

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  15. I am really getting excited about this release.

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  16. Looks good. I don't have an issue with streamlined rules. It makes it easier to play and to learn.
    cheers

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  17. I'm sure that BF are treating Team Yankee like Fate of the Nation - an original short release of a couple of restrictive lists followed by a larger book which i would imagine would include BAOR, West Germans and possibly other Nato forces like Canadians, Dutch, Belgians etc. As well as expanding some Warpac options like T64s and T80s (which is what the Soviet GSFG were mostly equipped with). As for dumbing down the system. I for one enjoy playing modern wargames rules like FOW and Impetus which although they abstract many things are intuitive and don't boggle the brain with massive lists of factors. You can play relatively big encounters to a conclusion in an evening unlike the old 1980s era rulesets like WRG and Challenger where you were lucky to get more than a few turns in.

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  18. I hear simplification, and I'm not sure how to take that. I love the Basic FoW ruleset; the only real changes I want to see out of it is some form of alternating activation to make the game feel more dynamic, and all skill and morale tests moved to a 2D6 so that they have a nice bell curve.

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  19. Couple of thoughts/questions: I wonder if the soldiers will be plastic, and will there be a painting guide for armor and soldiers?

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  20. Will the mentioned cards be packaged with the rulebook or with the minis? If with the minis, this is not good for my situation since I plan to use 6mm miniatures.

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  21. Looking good, I'm hoping for M60 s and stuff that could be used to upgrade my FoaN forces to do Yom Kippur. Not to sure about the streaming idea though, we don't have computer access and wifi is hit and miss here so putting the rules in a book would be preferable.Not everyone has a computer handily placed in the room.

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  22. There are historical cold war era battles that could be utilized for this project as same . Yom Kipur and Indo-Pakistani wars with great tank battles and historical facts that could somehow incorporate actual Soviet and NATO forces. I am not sure also for the streaming idea of a finctional novel written by an author who is focusing in an area event. From the moment is hypothetical, then many factors and systems should be included.

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    1. Harold Coyle's Team Yankee detailed a specific event from General Sir John Hackett's novel, The Third World War, so if you get that (and its sequel The Untold Story) you will have a complete "history" of WW3...

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  23. Gotta wonder who painted those Abrahms. They all have the Arabic number 8 painted on them which was used only in Desert Storm to avoid friendly fire.

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  24. I really enjoy Flames of War and basically became an exclusive FoW player after Warhammer 8th edition came out (too much "roll a bucket of dice without thinking"). I'm considered they will totally change it and "ruin" the system for me. Yes, it can be a bit clunky, but I think it works very well.

    However, I'm okay with them tweaking the system to make it better; maybe an alternating action system would be better. Would love to see them move away from d6s to something like d10s as then you can have more training and motivation levels, but that won't happen as it adds to the complexity.

    Mind you, I love 3.5 D&D and then saw 4th was lame lame lame. Figured 5th would be similar, but they streamlined the rules, made it easier and quicker, but still allowed lots of depth.

    Fingers crossed they don't blow it!

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  25. The vital question for me is whether they have introduced overwatch as the ambush 'fudge' never worked in FOW.

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